Press Release

Shetland Islands Council believes proposed changes to the provision of coastguard stations in Scotland could place individuals in greater harm than previously, and has pinpointed likelycommunications failures as posing a major risk to shipping around the isles.

The council's 280-page submission to the Government as part of the consultation process on the changes, which ends tomorrow (Thursday 5 May), states that:

"Bitter experience has shown that centralised call centres do not deliver the best service and have, at times, placed individuals in greater harm. The ‘NHS 24’ call centre has regularly tasked medical response to the wrong settlements of similar names and occasionally to the wrong island groups. The ‘FiReControl’ system for England and Wales, which effectively proposed centralised call centres, has cost the public purse £435million, with ongoing costs even though the system has now been scrapped.

"The removal of 22 experienced and qualified coastguard officers will result in a reduction in resilience for Shetland. It would leave the islands particularly vulnerable to communications failures between here and the mainland. The current system has in-built hard-wired resilience that allows the coastguard station to operate even when links to the mainland are severed. Under the current proposals, a loss of communications between Shetland and the mainland, would leave the volunteers with only handheld radios and binoculars to respond to any incident within the area."

Council convener Sandy Cluness gave his support to plansfrom The Outer Hebrides Coastguard Task Group (OHCTG), which includes Western Isles Council, for keeping three coastguard centres in Scotland open.

These proposals are for a 12-centre model across the UK, including six stations for England, two in Wales, one in Northern Ireland and three in Scotland. Linking Stornoway, Lerwick and Aberdeen would create a Scottish 'tri-service' centre, increasing the resilience of each centre. Stornoway would have primary responsibility for the west coast, Aberdeen for the East coast and Shetland the north coast.

Mr Cluness said:

"It is vital that the councils act together on this. We must not be divided. I fully support the initiative from the Western isles for a three-centre model in Scotland.

“I would like to pay tribute to our hard-working team in Shetland for putting together a full and comprehensive response for the consultation. One which makes clear that losing the Coastguard station, and indeed threatening the provision of emergency tugs, will put shipping at risk and could cost lives."

He added:

"I understand that the future of funding for the Maritime Incident Response Group, which trains and deploys fire service personnel at sea, is also under threat. This is unacceptable."

A representative of the SIC will travel to Stornoway on 19th May to give evidence to members of the UK Government’s Transport Select Committee, which is meeting there to consider the coastguard closure issue.